A Great Job Market for Growing Companies

LaSalle Network CEO Tom Gimbel, Intelligentsia Coffee HR director Lisa Hogan, and Intelligentsia Coffee Design director Stephen Morrissey weigh in on Intelligentsia's new business concept and the state of the job market.

Though unemployment isn’t dropping as quickly as many would like, especially the long-term unemployed, LaSalle Network CEO Tom Gimbel says the job market is full of gems for growing companies.

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“People have humbled themselves … they realize it’s a different job market … and they’re willing to take entry-level jobs and take a step back financially because those jobs don’t exist anymore,” Gimbel told FBN's Jeff Flock during the latest Conference Room interview.

A healthy job market is good news to Lisa Hogan, the HR director at Intelligentsia Coffee, which is opening five additional locations this year.

And when it comes to staffing a growing company, Gimbel and Hogan agree employers today can have their pick of the litter when it comes to qualified –and overqualified -- applicants.

But contrary to traditional wisdom, Hogan says Intelligentsia Coffee isn’t averse to hiring candidates who may have more on their resume than the position requires.

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““Previously that may have been the case, because then you had concerns of hiring somebody and then when they find something better, moving on … so on you don’t want take the time to train and acclimate them to your company if they’re going to move on,” says Hogan.

“But now I think people are willing to stay --they’d rather have the longevity at a company. So even if they are overqualified, hopefully we can move them to a spot within our company at some point,” she says, finding a spot more suited to their skill set.

However, Hogan and Gimbel say large resume gaps are still a big no-no when they’re looking at applicants.

“What it says if you’ve been out of the market, if you’ve been unemployed for over a year in this job market, it really means either, a) you’re pricing yourself out of the job market, or b) you weren’t as good in that role as you think you were, and companies don’t value you as much as other people who have that skill set,” says Gimbel.

And Hogan agrees: “I do look for someone who’s tried to do something in that time, even if it’s just volunteer work. I do want somebody with a resume that’s shown continuous effort.”